Good Gut Health – Essential Food to Include in Your Diet

Words: Jess Spiro

We all know that we are what we eat and that we should endeavour to eat as well as we can, that what we eat has an effect on our energy levels, as well as our weight. But, one often overlooked part of nutrition is gut health. The gut, or the intestinal tract, has a massive role to play in your overall health and wellness. Recent studies have shown that it can even affect your psychological wellness too. If you’re doing your best to take care of yourself, exercise and eat well, then you need to ensure that you’re looking after your gut health too.

The intestine is essentially an ecosystem of bacteria and yeast and in order for your body to perform optimally, these need to be kept balanced.

If there is an imbalance, pathogens and bad bacteria can develop, which hamper your body’s ability to absorb beneficial nutrients from food, and can cause serious issues. Your body’s immunity also depends on your gut health, so when it’s unhealthy, it’s compromised and you’re more likely to fall ill or to struggle to fight off infection.

If you’re struggling with any digestive issues or something like a skin problem, you should look to your diet before anything else. Ultimately, nearly everything is affected by your gut health. Unfortunately, just eating healthily isn’t enough if you aren’t eating the right kind of healthy foods to look after your intestine.

So, how can you ensure good gut health?

Well, it all comes down to diet and one of the best ways to look after that gut is to make sure that you’re getting enough probiotics into your system. Probiotics are essential to the health and wellbeing of your intestine – they’ve been proven to introduce beneficial bacteria into your digestive system. What they do is help to balance the bacteria in your digestive system. Probiotics have also been shown to help to slow down some of the diseases that develop in your stomach, as well as improving bowel health, aiding digestion and boosting immunity.

Where do these probiotics come from?

Fermented foods mostly. Don’t be wigged out by the word fermented, they aren’t as scary as you think. (Read more about embracing fermented foods HERE)


Types of Fermented Food

Yoghurt

You probably already have yoghurt in your fridge, but to maximise your probiotic and good bacteria intake, you need to be eating plain, full cream yoghurt.

Kimchi

The spicy fermented Korean condiment, kimchi, is also a delicious and easy way to improve gut health. Simply order a side of it the next time you see it on a menu and tuck in. It’s also great when plopped on a fresh green salad – it will add some spice and funk.

Gut Health

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut, a German side dish of fermented cabbage, is also great and can be a little easier to include in your everyday diet if kimchi seems a little scary.

Kombucha

Lastly, if you’re more interested in sipping your way to good gut health, try drinking a glass of kombucha every morning. Kombucha is laden with healthy probiotics and is a healthy, refreshing alternative to fizzy drinks.

Gut Health

Kefir

You can also pick up a bottle of kefir, a fermented milk drink, and add a splash of it to your morning smoothie.

Including any of these in your diet is an easy way to boost probiotics in your system, as they’re all tasty and easy to eat. Also, the next time you’re at the chemist, pick up a box of probiotics and start taking one every day. They’re relatively inexpensive and really do make a world of difference. You really can’t overdo it with probiotics, the more the merrier!

Another way to boost your gut’s health is to limit your intake of starches and sugars, particularly things like white bread. If you can’t give up bread, make sure you’re eating proper fermented sourdough made with natural stone ground flour.

For more delicious recipe inspiration subscribe to the Findus newsletter.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*